p-ISSN 2614-3836 |e-ISSN 2614-3836
Received Published
Religiosity Chosen: Was It Affected to Young Generation’s Election Behavior?
1Mulyana Abdullah, 2Kama A Hakam, 3Wilodati, 4Ratnafitria
Email : 1 [email protected], 2[email protected], 3[email protected],
1,2,3,4 Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
ABSTRACT
To assess the influence of religious faith, especially Islam, to the point of view and election behavior on the young generation, this research is focused upon UPI students was carried out by applying the associative causal method and quantitative approach. By taking samples to youngest students as voter novice who is determined by probability sampling, the result proved that there is a significant influence of the religious aspect to election behavior among students of UPI. But, it seems that religious faith isn’t a dominant factor. It can be seen from how major of the influence of religious faith to the election behavior was only 11.9 %. So that, it is recommended that as the effort to give political understanding and implementation for young generations of Moslem, religion needs to be implemented holistically, not partial, to avoid misinterpretation on Islamic terms and laws that as the basis of the political participation process.
Keywords
Religiousity chosen;
election behavior
INTRODUCTION
Today, the democratization process of politics in Indonesia marked by the establishment multi- party system where the position of the people who were viewed as whom ultimate sovereignty. Ten years after the collapse of the New Order, Indonesia has made significant progress, however the quality of democracy is still low(Bunte, 2008), (Tomsa, 2008), (Aspinall, 2011). In Indonesia, the transition to democracy has been directed towards its journey in the political arena. More and more entrepreneurs who become politicians have taken over positions, taking over positions previously held by the bureaucratic elite (Fukuoka, 2012). that most Muslims continue to look to their religion for principles of public order as well as personal spirituality. The political ideals of Muslims derive from their traditions, however, are not immutable, but vary in a manner that reflects competing views as to how Muslims should respond to the challenges of the late modern world (Hefner, 2016).
It seems to be estimated in an election and local election where populace as directly selects the
people who have the right to choose can choose their demand of candidates to represent theirself to lead the government. It is where the internal aspects of each voter seriously impact their choice to make someone becomes a government leader.
One of the aspects is political behavior of voter which according to Lazarsfeld (Hasriani, Madani, & Handam, 2015, p. 54) trough his sociological approach, election behavior are influenced by:
“... economic status, religion, residence, work, and age. It can affect voter’s decisions.
Every society has norms on their own and adherence to it and raising the integration which is able to control the individual behavior by providing pressure so that everyone could conform. Because they want to live in without stiffened with their social environment.”
Besides, the voters behavior is also influenced by the rational aspect (rational choice) or in general it’s called economics approach (Hasriani, Madani, & Handam, 2015, p. 55) that had already been decided the choice of the voters related to government’s performance, parties or their representatives, both for themselves or for their country, or just the opposite.
For the Indonesian people, the religion role, especially Islam, it seems still have a strong influence on social behavior in election, especially in determining the party that they would support.
Higashikata & Kawamura (2015, p. 23) found that in general, the people who live in the district have the strong faith of Islam always vote the Islamic parties. This phenomenon isn’t surprising, considering the fact that the Muslim community in Indonesia usually still revere to the Islamic syariah where they lie their commitment to Al-Qur'an and hadith. One of it form the basis of a view of their ability to determine or choose one of their leaders, or political parties that carried them is hadith which is narrated by Muslims from Auf bin Malik (Sunarto, 1999, p. 604):
رايخ مكتمئأ نيذلا منهوبتح مكنوبيحو نولصتو
مهيلع نولصيو مكيلع
رارشو مكتمئأ نيذلا منهوضغبت
مكنوضغبيو منهونعلتو
مكنونعليو
“The best leader is a leader who you love and love you, you pray for them and they pray for you, and the beasts leader is a leader who you hate and they hate you, you cursed them and so did they to you” (Hadith narated by Muslim from Auf bin Malik).
However, with the advent of science and technology where communication between the world community more powerful and intensively that causes the interact in various aspects of life, including both in view and perceptibility, has led to displacing toward rational scientific thinking. In the end, it has been influencing the individual behavior of society. It is also true with the behavior in choosing their representatives in government.
The question then is had the moslem people in Indonesia already started to put aside the morality of syari’ah in choosing their government leader as their political behavior? Is not Islam has been asserted
how they should choose their leader, and under what circumstances they can select the leader from anyone who are non-Muslims?
In Islam point of view, faith is firmness themselves to submitted and subject to the laws of Allah Swt. in determination/intention, utterance and deeds, as affirmed by (Al-Hajuri, 2008) that belief or faith is the speech and which you have brought to the limbs. As for a form of belief or faith in Islam point of view, is apparent from what is delivered by Abu Hurairah ra. (Al-Hajuri, 2008) who said that the prophet Muhammad saw. said:
ُ ناَيمِلإا
ُ عْضِب
َُنو عْ بَسَو
ُْوَأ
ُ عْضِب
َُنوُّتِسَو
ُ ةَبْع ش اَه لَضْفَأَف
ُ لْوَ ق
َُهَلِإ َُل
ُُّللَُّلِإ اَهَنَْدَأَو
ُ ةَطاَمِإ ىَذَلأا
ُِنَع
ُِقيِرَّطلا
ُ ءاَيَْلْاَو
ُ ةَبْع ش
َُنِم
ُِناَيمِلإا
“Faith is 70 or 60 the branches. The highest is the word of ‘laa ilaha illallah’ (There is no God who had the right to be worshipped but Allah), the lowest is get rid of interference from the streets, and bashfulness is part of faith” (Hadith narrated by Bukhari no. 9 and Muslim no. 35)
The concept of faith in syari’ah Islam essentially is a steadiness to be in submission to Allah SWT. with obey every commandment. In this case, Allah Swt. said:
ُ نِسْ مُُ َو هَوَُِِّلِلُّ هَهْجَوَُمَلْسَأُْنَّمِمُِا نيِدُ نَسْحَأُْنَمَو ا فيِنَحَُميِهاَرْ بِإَُةَّلِمَُعَبَّ تاَو ُ
ُ
ُ ۗ
َُميِهاَرْ بِإُ َّلِلّاَُذََّتَّاَو ُ
ُ ليِلَخ
“And who is better in religion than the one who submits himself wholly to Allah, and he/she does good, and he/she followed the faith of Ibrahim the upright one? And Allah took Ibrahim as the precious” (Al-Nisaa’: 125).
In this sense, it means faith not only related to justification with a heart of faith or just plain God alone, for example, faith in Allah SWT. means know that Allah was; prove it with pledge inherently (syahadat) or utter the dzikir event to Allah; have all orders of Allah and avoid all restrictions.
This is the meaning of faith the truth, so people who believe is the one whose acknowledge the existence of Allah (dzikir in hart), their tongue always recite the words of Allah (dzikir in speech), and every part of their body always have all orders of Allah and avoid all restrictions (dzikir in doing).
Behavior, in general, can be seen as everything no matter what the or course of action that has been done by someone, behavior is the essential characteristics of a person to perform the certain activities which is the mixed results from a variety of psychological, physical, and biological factors, and social conditions affect the human life.
Walgito (Marjohan, 2014, p. 16) suggested that behavior is the individual activity, in a wider sense includes the overt behavior and inner behavior. Behavior in the soul of individual not arising by itself, but as a result of a stimulus that be accepted by individuals both external stimulus and internal stimulus.
In the study of voting behavior, Antunes (2010, p. 146) suggested that at least there are three models in the study of election behavior, which are sociological models that be identified as Columbia model which is focused on the influence of social factors; psychological model that be identified as Michigan model which views that party identification is the main factor behind election behavior and the voters; and rational choice theory or economic model that be identified as Rochester model which is based on economic theory of democracy.
The sociological model explains that the social characteristics and social grouping have a significant influence in determining election behavior of someone. Social characteristics (job, education, etc.) and sociological background (religion, settlement, gender, age, etc.) are the main factors to decide political choice. Meanwhile, according to Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet (Antunes, 2010, p. 146), the sociological model reveals that the relationship between election behavior with their social lives is quite powerful. In this term, Antunes (2010, p. 147) sad, “... it was possible to explain the electoral choices using only the three factors that defined the Index of Political Predisposition used in research: socio- economic status, religion, and area of residence”.
The psychological model is the approach which uses and develops psychological concepts, especially the idea of socialization and attitude to explain election behavior. According to Franklin (1995, pp. 1346-1347), the voters in US decide their choice. Because the impact of the psychological power that growing in themself as a product of socialization that they accept. Political socialization that someone receives in earlier (both at home and school) for example had a great deal to their political choice, particularly at the time of he/she determines his/her political choice for the first time. Election behavior didn’t have to permanent, like the sociological characteristics and party identification, but it can changes appropriate to the time and events on fundamental problems.
Here, political issues are the main things to consider. The voters will decide to choose based on their assessment of the political issues and the candidates who are proposed. It means that the voters can decide their choice based on rational consideration, this is the outlook that is adopted from the rational choice theory. The rational choice theory model, according to Antunes (2010: 158) is implemented in three fundamental premises, which is: (1) all decisions - those that are made by voters and political parties - are rational, (2) the democratic political system implies a level of consistency that supports predictions about the consequences of decisions made by voters and political parties, dan (3) the democratic system assumes - despite the consistency stated in the previous point.
Referring to the matter above, this research implemented a quantitative approach research design which is the reality of the object is concrete, observed, able to be classified and measurable (Sugiyono, 2012, p. 10). This study was conducted with focusing the object on Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI) based on consideration that the youth as eligible voters, especially as novice voters in the vicinity of the higher education is identified as a subject who can be described as someone who
has high education relatively and capable for using the perceptibility and thinking objectively in taking a decision, which in this case is a decision to make the choice in the election process in Indonesia.
All the subjects in this study as the population are the youngest students of UPI in 2017/2018 academic period as many as 2,428 persons who instead are widely scattered in 31 departments or programs and divided into 62 study groups. Meanwhile a large number of sample set using Dixon &
Leach (1977, p. 8) formula as many as 240 persons of the Muslim students. Aligned with the quantitative design research which is aimed to test the causality between both religiosity chosen variable and election behavior, so, the analyzing process is done with applied the correlation analysis technique.
DISCUSSION
The Tendency in Religiosity Chosen
In Islam point of view, faith is firmness themselves to submitted and subject to the laws of Allah Swt. in determination/intention, utterance, and deeds, as affirmed by Al-Hajuri (2008, p. 15) that belief or faith is the speech and which you have brought to the limbs. As for a form of belief or faith in Islam's point of view, it is apparent from what is delivered by Abu Hurairah ra. (Al-Hajuri, 2008, p. 15) who said that the prophet Muhammad SAW. said:
ُ ناَيمِلإا
ُ عْضِب
َُنو عْ بَسَو
ُْوَأ
ُ عْضِب
َُنوُّتِسَو
ُ ةَبْع ش اَه لَضْفَأَف
ُ لْوَ ق
َُهَلِإ َُل
ُُّللَُّلِإ اَهَنَْدَأَو
ُ ةَطاَمِإ ىَذَلأا
ُِنَع
ُِقيِرَّطلا
ُ ءاَيَْلْاَو
ُ ةَبْع ش
َُنِم
ُِناَيمِلإا
“Faith is 70 or 60 the branches. The highest is the word of ‘laa ilaha illallah’ (There is no God who had the right to be worshipped but Allah), the lowest is get rid of interference from the streets, and bashfulness is part of faith.” (Hadith narrated by Bukhari no. 9 and Muslim no. 35)
Concerning an individual in determining the attitude to choose the leader, a belief in themself shall influence it dominantly. The need for a leader who can arrange or organizes society's life has been a belief in every community of human beings. For Muslims, it is a right that will need to be championed, even to elect the leaders was said to be a duty for certain community.
At the side of the attitude to choose, the confidence is based on the syari’ah Islam which is embedded in Muslim students of UPI seen in their attitude in dropped the choice to whom the position of leader will be given. Most of them convinced that the leader who they should choose was the leader in the same faith with them and shouldn’t choose the leader who lacks faith. Although the majority of respondents believe that they should choose who has the same faith with them and shouldn’t choose the one who lacks in faith, there are still some of them who is convinced that someone in different religion could be choosen as their leader. If referring to the explanation of Taimiyah who said that the state of
despotic state wouldn’t be backed by Allah although it is led by a Muslim, so if a few respondents said that they can choose leader who in different religion, it’s not broken Islamic teachings. It is supported by an opinion of Taimiyah (1977, XXVIII: 253) in Dar al-Ifta wal-irsyad:
“God supports the state of being fair although disbelieve (its leader) and not support the despotic state although Muslim (its leader). The world cannot straight blend between infidelity and justice, and it is so in injustice and Islamic.”
Thus, when we have all sorts in the choice to lift the leader non-muslim or not, if it is asked who should be chosen between both Muslim leaders who have nothing could lead or non-Muslim leaders who could drive. The realistic answer is the none-Muslim leader who could lead. Because having a non- muslims leader during the Muslim community is allowed. It is referred in two things: first, the leadership in Islamic law is a problem that none absolute (almutaghayyirat); second, the law that prevents non- muslim be elected as the leaders to be associated with it, that is when they (non-Muslim leaders) are committing sacrilege to Muslim people.
A Tendency of Election Behavior in Designating Leader
The behavior in this term is an essential characteristic of individuals to do an activity which is the mixed results from a variety of psychological, physical and biological factors, and social conditions that give effect to human life. In the meantime, Edwards, Secord, and Becman (Azwar, 2003, p. 5) have suggested that behavior is degrees of positiveness or negative attitude toward a psychological object as a descendant of feelings (affection), thought (cognition) and the act of predisposing (conation) of a person to aspects that surroundings them.
Behavior that is shown among respondents to choose the leader lied on their attitude by wide a range of. A tendency of respondents attitude considers themselves as Moslems choose someone to be a leader because in the same faith look so dominant. It was reasonable, consider that election behavior would be influenced by social life strongly, one of which is the religion environment which they believed, where the community has a fairly significant effect on someone's election behavior. Regarding it, Elmira (Antunes, 2010, pp. 147-148) indicated there is a condition affecting a political choice, one of which is religion.
Meanwhile, in terms of the influence from the others to determine towards choose someone to be a leader does not seem to bring a significant impact on respondent's political behavior, as well as the effects of their clergies, parents, and friends. Here it appears that the influence of internal individual more of a role, as presented by Antunes (2010, p. 146) that there are three the essence in make the political choice, one of which is the personal influence.
From this perspective, young voters, in this case is the students of UPI, seem to have a trend is not large enough to choose anyone became the leader because allegiance in person with him/her or expect advantage from the one was chosen as the leader. However, a tendency of students of UPI to
choose leader who in accordance with them quite high. So does a tendency to choose the leader who able to advance the region where they reside as voters seemed to be most attention among this student.
It was reasonable considering that students as an academic community still have high idealism but are not enough in political experience will always be expected the leader following what they want and they understood through the socialization process within scientific community. Associated with the decision to make the choice as election behavior, students of UPI as the “intellectual” young voters seem to show the very high tendency to choose leader with considering the leader who has more both rational and objective attitude. This tendency could be seen in their consideration to chose the most powerful leader who has had experience in performance and experiences in leadership and in conjunction with adequate. In addition, the vision and mission of each leader candidate and background of education will be considered by students of UPI to determine their choice.
This is in line with the opinions of Antunes (2010, p. 158) that there’re three premises in rational election theory as follows: (1) all decisions - those that are made by voters and political parties - are rational, where its attention focused on utility principles; (2) the democratic political system implies a level of consistency that supports predictions about the consequences of decisions made by voters and political parties, in this case, the agents (voters, parties, and government) have responsibility and can be trusted, where they can predict the consequences of different choices; (3) the democratic system assumes - despite the consistency stated in the previous point, in this case, a degree of uncertainty or level certainty allows existence of different options.
The review of these three the point of view of an election behavior tendency on the young generation, especially the students of UPI as the respondents, it can be concluded that rational-objective thinking aspects on the candidate of the leaders who would otherwise be chosen become an important consideration for them to choose. In addition, religion factors are always provide the basis their consideration too, in choosing, although not so strong. While the psychological aspect, as well as humility and the advantages for personally, does not seem to be attention and consideration role in the decision to choose.
The Influence of Religion to Election Behavior
The election behavior of young voters, especially the students of UPI, more and less are also encouraged by their confidence in religion. This fact is evidenced by correlation test that shown any significant influence of the religious beliefs to election behavior among the students of UPI. But, even if there is a significant influence, apparently religious belief factors aren’t a dominant factor. This can be seen from the size of the influence of this religious belief to pick the behavior is as many as 11.9 %.
Most of the rest affected by other factors that have not been reviewed in this research.
The Influence of Religion to Point of View on Leader
In terms of the possibility of the influence of religious belief factors of students of UPI to their point of view on a leader who they will choose, the result of correlation test proved that there is a significant influence. But as its influence on election behavior, the religious belief able to influence their point of view about the leader who they choose, it was riched 2.8 %. This means that most of the rest is influenced by the other factors which haven’t been reviewed in this research.
CONCLUSION
Based on the analysis in this research, it can be concluded that basically, the election behavior among the students of UPI, more and less, have been affected by their religious faith that is proved in the result of the correlation test which shows a significant correlation between both religious faith and election behavior aspects. But initially, it looked like the religious faith is not a dominant factor.
Meanwhile, in view of the criteria for a good leader, the religious faith will also give impact on forming and growing the sight of students of UPI besides on the leader that they choose.
Referring to the analysis and conclusions from this study, there are several recommendations related to the influence of religious faith to election behavior on young generation, which are: (1) For institutions that have authorized build community resources, educational institutions, and religious institutions, especially Islam, this study can be used as something to advance the knowledge and planting political awareness to young Muslim generation, the religion need to be implemented holistically; (2) For higher education institutions, it need to find innovation and design to build young Moslem generation political awareness with based on Islamic syari’ah in right essential in spite of broad the interests of the group or a specific group of people; and (3) For the next researcher, need to do the study more deeply in addition to the aspects or factors that haven’t been reviewed in this research related to the influence of religious faith to election behaviour of young generation in Indonesia.
REFERENCES
Al-Hajuri, S. Y. (2008). Al Mabaadi Al-Mufidah fit-Tauhidi wal-Fiqih wal-Aqidah. (U. Abdullah, Translater.) Beirut: Maktabah Raudhatul Muhibbin.
Antunes, R. J. (2010). Theoretical Models of Voting. Exedra, Volume 4, pp. 145-170.
Aspinall, E. (2011). Democratization and Ethnic Politics in Indonesia: Nine Theses. Journal of East Asian Studies, 11(2), 289–319. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1598240800007190
Azwar, S. (2003). Sikap Manusia, Teori dan Pengukurannya. Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar Offset.
Bunte, M. (2008). Democratization in Post-Suharto Indonesia. In Democratization in Post-Suharto Indonesia.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203934760
Dixon, C., & Leach, B. (1977). Sampling Methods for Geographical Research. London: Catmog 17-Institute of British Geographers.
Fukuoka, Y. (2012). Politics, business and the state in post-Soeharto Indonesia. Contemporary Southeast Asia.
https://doi.org/10.1353/csa.2012.0002
Franklin, M. N. (1995). Voting Behavior. In S. M. (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Democracy, Volume IV, pp. 1346- 1347). Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc.
Hasriani, Madani, M., & Handam. (2015). Perilaku Pemilih Pemula dalam Pemilihan Presiden dan Wakil Presiden Tahun 2014 di Kelurahan Sapaya Kecamatan Bungaya Kabupaten Gowa. Otoritas, Volume 5, Number 1, pp. 52-65.
Hefner, R. W. (2016). 88. Public Islam and the Problem of Democratization. In R. Blaug & J. Schwarzmantel (Eds.), Democracy (pp. 516–521). https://doi.org/10.7312/blau17412-107
Higashikata, T., & Kawamura, K. (2015). Voting Behaviour in Indonesia from 1999 to 2014: Religious Cleavage or Economic Performance? Japan: IDE-JETRO.
Marjohan. (2014). Hubungan Keteladanan Orang Tua terhadap Perilaku Sosial Siswa. Jurnal Ilmiah PPKn IKIP Veteran Semarang, Volume 2, Number 1, pp. 14-23.
Sugiyono. (2012). Metode Penelitian Kuantitatif, Kualitatif, dan R & D. Bandung: Alfabeta.
Sunarto, A. (1999). Terjemah Riyadhus Sholihin Jilid I. Jakarta: Pustaka Amani.
Taimiyah. (1977). Dar Al-Ifta wal Irsyad, Volume XXVIII. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr.
Tomsa, D. (2008). Party Politics and Democratization in Indonesia. In Party Politics and Democratization in Indonesia. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203892749
